“Evan made a very foolish and cruel plan to send poor little Ivor to a strict school in the furthest part of Cornwall. There was no persuading him, so Evangeline very wisely took the whole thing out of his hands.”
“How?” asked Teresa. “What could she do if he wouldn’t do what she wanted?”
“Well you will find, dear, some day,” said Susie, “that when a man is bent on doing what is wrong the only way is to seem as if it was all to go on as he says and then trust to Providence to find some way of stopping it when the time comes. Opposition only makes him more determined, and he is more likely to take precautions.”
“I thought it was arranged by Evan and everybody that Ivor was to go to Mrs. Vachell’s.”
“That was Evan’s own silly arrangement, certainly, and Mrs. Vachell agreed just for the sake of putting off the dreadful school time. And now you see, mercifully the doctor says that Evangeline must, on no account, be worried, so darling Ivor is to come here after all, as he ought to have in the first place, and everything is all right. It is wonderful how things work out if only one has trust.”
“But then, I don’t see what you are afraid of the maids knowing, and why Evan is so cold,” said Teresa, very puzzled.
“Well, of course Evan wasn’t pleased with the alteration of plan. You couldn’t expect him to be. And Evangeline has got so ill with the anxiety. If she had only trusted to its coming out right——. But she got run down and worried, and what with one thing and another, she didn’t want to see Evan or to hear any more discussion, and I thought the maids would think it so odd. You know how in that class everything is sacrificed to the man because he has the money, and they don’t understand anything between a difference of opinion and actual quarrelling.”
“I see,” said Teresa thoughtfully.
“I wouldn’t talk to Evangeline about it, I think, dear,” said Susie after a pause. “The doctor says she must be kept very quiet.”
Later in the morning Evangeline asked for Teresa to come up to her room. She was in bed, looking white and tired and the nurse was quietly dusting.